Jean-Philippe Lagouarde
The work of
- ArtistJean-Philippe Lagouarde
- WriterFiona Le Brun
PETER IBSEN Lagouarde’s artistic universe is defined by quiet minimalism, transformation, and subtle attention to surface. His objects and installations unfold through repeated gestures, evoking a meditative process and a reverence for overlooked detail. By focusing on the essentials, Lagouarde creates works that invite repeated discovery and slow contemplation.
Jean-Philippe Lagouarde by Fiona Le Brun
Through a process as ascetic as it is random, Jean-Philippe Lagouarde becomes the witness of a tangible rhythm and constant evolution of reality.
Born in France in 1976, Jean-Philippe Lagouarde is a self-taught artist. Although he has been drawing and painting since childhood, it is only recently that his practice has developed. When he moved to Paris, leaving behind a life of contemplative wandering in the southwest of France, he quickly experienced the sense of narrowness inherent in cities. From this overwhelming feeling came a need to reconnect with the tangible. His artistic approach then took shape in a studio he designed and built in his Parisian apartment. A tight space of three by two meters, open to the outside, which he considers a work in its own right. There, his cathartic approach produces pieces of a highly unstable nature.
A slow, precise, and repetitive technique, with unpredictable results, is at the heart of his approach. Using a box cutter, he slices thousands of thin strips of dyed blotting paper and adheres them contiguously on a frame. By choosing this medium of the past, he opts for a base that is essentially accessory, a base which, unlike creation itself, functions primarily to absorb an overflow of ink. Persistent ink fills the space as the artist arranges the void in a frame. The blotting paper, an unstable and fragile medium, is thus ennobled. It gives a dynamic nature to each of his works, affected by light, air, and time. And that is for the best, because it is, above all, a work about the imperfection that the artist seeks by inviting in the unknown, even up to his choice of colors, and their potential instability.
This same meditative path, close to asceticism, gives birth to a different work each time. These thousands of strips of paper are like the steps climbed on a mountain to reach a summit. Their number, which varies, gives the title to each work and measures the path taken by the artist, like a performance. In his words:
“I make my creative process visible. Before the work, there is what inspires it, what it is impregnated with to produce it. This system stages a reality where creation is reduced to a simple intention. In this process, the different media create an interaction independently of me.”
This preliminary approach opens a door through which the viewer can appropriate the artist’s works. Alternately mysterious, soothing, or melancholic, depending on the viewer’s gaze or the time of day, they can evoke the bark of a tree, the rhythm of the waves, or organic fibers. However, there is no aesthetic intent at the origin of his practice:
“I discover my work as I go, by giving in to its composition. I am a spectator choosing a point of view. My approach is immersive, similar to walking under the influence of natural surroundings.”
His only intention is to do and then let go.“By being detached, we get closer to the divine, which we summon by expressing nature,” he explains.
Defining himself as a facilitator of revelations, Jean-Philippe Lagouarde is always the first spectator to be surprised by the result of his own approach.
